Some Thoughts on (Career) Suicide – and Our Visit to an “American Mecca”

What a wonderful Sunday. I’m finally awake…whew. I was just pondering suicide, to be honest.

Kasparov’s Law of Notification Pain is at the bottom of this post…lol

No, silly. Not mine…lol I’ll get to all of that stuff in a second.

Onions, ketchup, grilled onions, jalapenos, relish, more ketchup, and as much bacon as will fit. Then more bacon.For now, check out that Bacon Cheeseburger porn to your right…lol

I’m not paying too terribly much attention to the nomination/coronation ceremonies – the real action in my world is where it always is, online. The conventions are the playground of elites and megadonors huddling behind the scenes and pulling strings “on the loyal party members’ behalf”, etc. They’re just not a place for normal every-day folks like me, and I’m more than willing to accept that price of my independence. I watched approximately two speeches from the RNC convention (live streamed here in the akula51.net command center, not so much on TV). I have no politcal party, so my wife and I had our small convention yesterday at an American Mecca known as Five Guys. It was a very small ceremony, attended by very few (ok, just us) – and we agreed that we’re still just not making our minds up yet.

Fiscal Conservatism and Ice Cream

Then we departed the norm and made a very smart (and somewhat uncharacteristic) fiscally conservative decision. Times have been a little tough lately with health and financial issues – we’re casualties of the same economy that’s dragging our entire nation down. We haven’t been able to “dine out” in a little while. I really wanted a milkshake, but at the end of the day it was much better to hit the grocery store and buy a half gallon. So we did…but I digress. Hmmm, it just dawned on me that I didn’t even have any ice cream last night…haha. I’m guilty of being pretty easily distracted sometimes – I forget what I think I want as easily as most folks I guess. Back to this suicide topic…

Thank you, Fort Hill, Idaho!

A lot of hard-working folks are rewarded for their efforts by being invited or elected/selected to attend a political convention. That’s good stuff for the loyal party members who bust their ass to get their candidate noticed and elected. It’s a huge gala – the host city gets a great economic bump – I’m sure a lot of folks came away from Cleveland this week and wondered about that whole “mistake by the lake” misnomer. From what I hear, it was a beautiful event and really a great time. Sure, there were a few protestors, but this is America, that’s one of our sacred rights, so there always will be. Thankfully, they have what they call “open carry” there. Some folks predicted mass violence and chaos, but the total number of shootings was the same zero (0, zip, nada, zilch) it usually is when you get a bunch of law-abiding gun owners who respect the Second Amendment together.

Five Guys – an American Mecca

Did Ted Off His Career with #VoteYourConscience?

Supposedly, one of the former candidates for the Presidential nomination of the party I used to be a member of has literally committed career suicide. It happened to be during one of the two speeches I watched from start to finish. I’m a big fan of chaos, so when very intelligent and articulate folks like Charles Krauthammer start engaging in extreme hyperbole to describe events, my ears perk up a little – especially when they’re on Fox. I admit I don’t watch Fox anymore and really haven’t since early November 2012. Any exposure to Karl Rove seemingly instantly raises my blood pressure to somewhat unhealthy levels…lol Exposure to radical fundamentalist extreme hyperbole seems like it’s causing the same stuff these days…haha This guy is finished, so the talking head on TV wanted me to believe as I passed by the TV in the living room.

Ironically, I also read yesterday that the suicidal candidate (whose career is over) is watching his approval rating in his home State rising from 62% to 71%. I was like…damn. Seriously? If we as a nation decided on anything and declared it was best for the country – I am willing to bet it would be hard to get anywhere near 70% support. That’s one of those high hurdles built into our Constitution (thankfully) that prevents 50% + 1 of the country from trampling over the other 49.999999%. As times like the ones we’re currently in painfully illustrate, it’s pretty easy to get 50% +1 of of folks to agree with pretty much anything.

Are the TEXit folks serious?

I wonder if he will be under serious consideration for high office when Texas decides it’s finally had enough of this Federal monster in DC. Texas may well choose to remind all of us that it’s the only state that was a sovereign nation prior becoming one of the serfdoms to be ruled from afar in Washington. I’m not sure because I can’t find Frank Luntz‘s focus group results from 1781-1783 online – but I don’t think our beloved Constitution ever even had a 70ish percent approval rating back then – and it’s literally led more people to freedom this century here in America and elsewhere than everything I know of combined.

That’s one hell of a career suicide.
Does anyone by chance need me to make a speech?
I’m available pretty cheap, I assure you that I’m far cheaper than Ms. William Jefferson Clinton…;)
P.S. Vote your conscience!

(UPDATE, 7/29/2016. I think it’s still Friday)

Funny story about the “Featured Image”

(you can’t see it from here, but it’s below in a tweet of mine from the Twitter thingy)

So, Garry Kasparov has a book out called Winter Is Coming. Naturally, as one might suspect, he’s a big fan of Game of Thrones like so many of us are. I was in the middle of something and thought – hey, maybe this guy needs a laugh. So WTF, I thought, and went ahead and I tweeted it to him.

I learned a few very important lessons

People on Twitter really are sometimes real, actual people. Even though this gentleman is undoubtedly the greatest chess master (and player) ever to inhabit our little ball of granite (not to mention human rights advocate) – he’s also a GoT fan. And, well – the cold war is getting colder every day.